Here With Me
by aim-snap-fall
Summary: [one shot]John gets a surprise visitor after a long work day. Claire&Bender. Story is better than the summary.


_A/N: I do not own the characters or The Breakfast Club. That is all. _

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Here With Me 

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John Bender twisted the diamond earring in his ear as he glanced around the garage. Everyone had called it quits earlier in the day, claiming to have fancy plans for Valentine's Day with the misses. Everyone but him, that was, which left Bender in the garage until closing. He could have left early too, if he wanted. It was his garage after all. For some reason, John had decided to stick around, and was now cursing himself out, for it was he who had to move all the tools the guys had left lying around back to their normal positions, and it was he who had to clean, well, everything.

_6:53. Christ, I should have left almost an hour ago._ John made a mental note to never again let every single person but him leave early ever again. _That or I will not stay._

He sighed as he made his way back into the office, unconsciously playing with the diamond stud. He glanced at the calendar tacked onto the wall. Valentine's Day, again. It was the same every year for him; somehow, he had always managed never to have a girlfriend or even a really close female friend around Valentine's Day. He did not have a valid reason for it, at least, not a reason any of his friends found acceptable. His reason was simple, and the only person he knew understood his illogical reasoning was Andy.

Of all the member of the Breakfast Club he expected to remain friends with years later, Andy would have been his last guess. Then again, back when they had first met, he saw himself married to Claire by now, maybe even have a family with her. Bender dropped the stapler in his hand onto his foot while his thoughts drifted to Claire, and he cursed himself, even though he had not felt any pain whatsoever.

Taking one last look around to be sure everything was closed up, put away, and clean, Bender flicked off the light switch and headed to lock the door. The key was in the bolt, when a tapping came at the window next to the door. Bender cursed in his head and leaned over.

A woman was standing, her hands pressed against the glass to see in. Even in the dark and rain, Bender saw she had a dazzling head of vibrant red hair. _Almost like a cherry,_ he thought to himself. "We're closed!" Bender shouted through the glass. Any other person and he would have opened the door, but this woman reminded him of the one thing he hated to think of on Valentine's Day.

She began to yell back at him through the window, but Bender could not understand a word she was saying. He sighed and moved back to the door realizing if he could not hear her, she did not hear him. "What?"

"Ohmygod, I was so afraid you'd be closed and my car just, well I don't really know what's wrong with it but I need to get back to Chicago tomorrow morning and I need someone to fix it and no other place was opened and I figured you would be here and-"

Bender stared at her, amazed at how many words one person could fit into a sentence. "Stay out in the rain, and you're gonna catch a cold. Didn't your mother ever tell you that, Princess?"

Claire shrugged; she did not have time for John's sarcastic wit, not now when she had to leave Shermer within ten hours in order to make it back to Chicago by 7 A.M. "Yes, John Bender, she did tell me that. Now can you please come look at my car? I really need it."

John crossed his arms over his chest and smirked. Claire glared at him; her patience was quickly waning. "What do you need it so badly for?"

Claire smiled; John quickly gave up his sarcastic nature when she got angry. "I have a meeting first thing tomorrow morning and I need to get back to Chicago tonight!"

John nodded understandingly, and took the keys from Claire's hand. With one hand on the door handle, he reached back and flicked on the lights. "Wait here, I'll be back."

Claire watched John dart through the rain to her car. She sighed deeply; it was Valentine's Day, and she was making him stay at work even longer. He was all set to leave until she showed up, desperate for her car to be fixed at that very moment. _He probably had something planned for tonight with his girlfriend and here I am ruining it._

She jumped when the car door slammed shut in the garage bay. Claire listened as metal tools clanked around. Normally, she would have gone in and see what all the noise was, but she knew Bender was working and moreover, she knew he hated being interrupted when he was trying to do something. Alone in the office, Claire began to survey the room a bit more.

The walls were pretty bare, save for a car poster here and there, and a calendar of some band she had never heard of before. She walked around to John's desk, and picked up the first picture frame she saw. It was a photo of the Breakfast Club, the day of the high school graduation. Nobody was looking at the camera, as they were all laughing at something Bender had said about Vernon. She remembered her mother trying to get them to look, and finally giving up and snapping the candid. Claire liked it better than another posed shot; they'd had enough of those. Next to it was a near identical photo of them all at her, Andy's and Brian's college graduation party. Claire smiled, fondly recalling the days the five of them spent almost every waking hour together. She replaced the pictures, surprised John had kept them, and even more surprised he had had them at work. Next to them was a third, and final frame of a young, beautiful woman. Claire assumed it was his girlfriend and was about the flip the frame over to check, but John burst through the side door causing Claire to nearly drop the frame instead.

He flashed her another grin, the same one he'd given her ten years ago in the janitor's closet on that fateful Saturday. "Good or bad news first, Princess?"

Claire shrugged, still holding the frame. "Doesn't matter. The bad," she said, changing her mind.

Bender brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes. "Well, you won't have this car for at least a week. I need one of my guys to look at it tomorrow, and then I can tell you for sure what's wrong."

Claire gapped at him. "I'm afraid to know the good."

Bender smiled, wider this time. "Well, Cherry, the good news is you'll probably end up paying me lots of money to fix it."

Claire shrieked at him. "What? Just fix the car _now_, John, please. I know when you're joking and right now..." she trailed off.

Bender raised his hands, palms up, "I never kid about money, Princess. You know that."

Claire did know that. In fact, she considered it to be John's greatest downfalls. Her thoughts began racing a mile a minute. She had a meeting tomorrow morning, she needed to be there, and without a car that would be nearly impossible. She could not even get to the train station without her car and she never trusted the cab drivers in Illinois, or any other state, when she was alone. She looked down again at the woman in the frame. She was prettier than her, her eyes sparkled more, she was probably in Shermer more than Claire had been in the last ten years.

John saw Claire's glance move back to the frame in her hand. "She's a two-dollar whore if that's what you were wondering." Claire looked back up at him in shock.

"What?"

John shrugged again. "She is, was, a two-dollar whore. Do not look at me like that, Princess, I am not kidding around. She isn't my girlfriend, she never was, and obviously she never will be."

"Why not?"

John looked away at the gray walls, then met Claire's gaze again. "She was a friend in high school, and a little bit afterwards, until she left for New York. Unfortunately, Sheila never realized she had not held a job for more than two weeks until she got there, which made it difficult to get a job out in the big city. So she became a whore." Claire stared at him expectantly waiting for the rest of his story. John shrugged and concluded dully, "Some guy killed her when he was done with her."

Claire tried to stammer out an apology, but none would leave the tip of her tongue. Inside she was setting off fireworks praising the fact it was not John's girlfriend. She did not even know why because she had moved on years ago. Or so she had led herself to believe. "Did...did you have plans for tonight?" She waited hopeful that he had not. Not because she would feel bad for ruining them, but because suddenly being in his presence on Valentine's Day for the first time since they'd officially called it quits made her want him back all for herself. She was sure the fact he was wearing really good cologne did not help either.

John nodded his head. "No."

Claire smiled in spite of herself. "That's good. I mean-" She stopped aware of what had slipped out of her mouth.

"Oh really, Princess? How do you know I don't have some girl waiting for me at home, cooking a nice holiday meal?"

Claire rolled her eyes. "One, because you just said you had no plans, two, because if you did, you would not have opened that door and looked at my car. Not even for me. And when are you going to stop calling me Princess? I am far gone from those carefree days. So far gone, in fact John Bender, that I am currently talking to you and trying to figure out how to get to Chicago by tomorrow morning."

Bender did not respond to her. He instead handed over Claire's car keys which he had been holding in his hand since he walked back into the office, and pulled his own from his jeans pocket. He nodded towards the door, reached over flicked off the lights, and pulled it open once again. Bender allowed Claire to step out in front of him and locked the door behind them. "Where are you staying?" he asked her, squinting to keep the rain from his eyes.

Claire shook her head, her red hair sending droplets onto his face. "I'm not. I mean, I was at my mother's yesterday, but one day is more than enough with her, you know that. Andy and Allison are out of town and Brian, well, Brian lives near me, but he is in Boston on business. So, I guess I could get a hotel."

Bender shook his head. Claire had to restrain herself from smiling; God, he was so sexy when he was soaked from the pouring rain. "Come back to my place then. I don't have anything better to do tonight than play host to you."

Claire bit her tongue. He couldn't know that was the one thing she wanted more than anything just then, could he? He did not know all she wanted to do was melt into his arms, to be with him again. She felt as hopeless as she did ten years ago, but she could not help it. "Are you sure? I would still need to find a way back to Chicago tomorrow. I have that meeting that I cannot miss."

Bender rolled his eyes. Corporate Claire annoyed him almost as much as Early-Detention Claire. Rather than answer, he stepped closer, and gently touched her cheek with his thumb. With his other hand, he brushed his hair away from his left ear, revealing the diamond stud she had given to him at the end of detention. Claire could feel her heart melting, if there was such a condition, and blushed. She hoped he could not see it in the darkness, but she felt he could.

He smiled back at her. "I'm sure," he said definitively and kissed her.


End file.
